We tend to underestimate the influence our earliest memories have on personality formation relationships. Because infants and very young children are unable to verbalize what they are thinking and remembering, and because memories of our earliest years are often amorphous, we seem insufficiently concerned about what gets deposited in our "memory banks." Recent research has established that the brain is 90 percent developed by the time a child is three years old—recommending that early stimulation of the brain is more important than previously believed. Although the brain's roles in memory acquisition, retention, and recall are incompletely understood, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the memories children acquire during these early years are particularly important.

Because metaphors provide an opportunity to view things from a different perspective and in new ways, it may be useful to think about memories being stored in a "memory bank." Together with our first breath, if not before, and regardless of our financial status, we begin making deposits in our "memory banks." No toaster is offered as incentive for opening an "account." Direct deposits are automatic, not optional. The interest we earn in these memory "accounts" accrues immediately and is compounded continually.

Our individual memory vaults are as secure, and confidential as we want to keep them. We alone hold the key and know the balance in our personal accounts—there is always a balance. Although there are no established business hours in our "memory banks," neurologists and psychiatrists tell us that circumstances exist which prevent us from gaining access to our memory deposits. We do not always have control over what gets deposited, and the deposits can be negative as well as positive. Withdrawals are sometimes made randomly and at inconvenient times, sometimes even interrupting sleep in the form of dreams.

Thinking metaphorically, such as depositing memories in a "bank," may encourage us to pay more attention to and place greater importance on the experiences we provide for our children and the interactions we have with them. We need to become more sensitive to the types of events, contacts, experiences, and relationships that provide the richest sources for their memories. What we remember is dependent upon a complex set of factors. Although a thorough analysis of such factors is beyond the scope of this analysis, it may be useful to think about memory deposits as coming from two broad sources: specific and general.

Specific sources may include incidents, events and relationships that are particularly poignant. Specific memories often involve a combination of our senses, may be positive or negative, and tend to be remembered discretely, as individual memory patches in the broader patchwork quilt of memories. For instance, one may remember a race won against the fastest runner on a team, a spelling bee victory in class, an opportunity to shine in religious school, or a time one protected a younger sister from a bully. One also may remember a specific embarrassing moment in front of classmates, the death of a grandparent, or a particularly frightening movie.

Other memories create a more general "memory sense." Our "memory sense" is an amalgam, a composite of what we remember about such things as: bedtime routines, holiday celebrations, summer vacations, first-day-of-school butterflies in our stomach, extended family and friends, and recurring sibling rivalrous episodes. This "memory sense" leads us to sum up our childhood as "happy" or "unhappy," our school years as "positive" or "negative," and our families as "functional" or "dysfunctional."

Common sense, FamilySense, dictates that if the memories are rich and predominantly positive, our kids are more likely to:

• feel loved and lovable
• be more hopeful and optimistic about their future
• overcome adversity rather than be overcome by it
• take responsibility for their actions
• be productive, contributing citizens
• develop empathy and caring feelings for others.

As we help our kids collect positive memories, we would do well to concentrate on the most predictable sources for memories: families and care givers, the broad community, media, schools, and friends and peers. At different stages of human development, the relative importance of these sources varies. It is useful to consider these memory sources as they pertain to areas of family life that we have control over, and can influence:

• our daily interactions (both quality and quantity)
• routines
• holidays and vacations
• relationships.

No matter how much we may want to assure our children only happy memories, the reality is that nobody is exempt from unhappy memories. The "perfect childhood" does not exist. We do not have control of all our children's experiences, nor everything to which they are exposed. But even if we did control the deposits to their "memory banks," we might consider whether it would be in our kids' best interests to insulate them from all stress, negative experiences, and personal failures. If we try to protect children from all adversity and try to assure they never experience failure or stress, we may impede their ability to develop the requisite resilience necessary to negotiate "real life" challenges and responsibilities.

As with so many parenting and other family-related issues, if we apply FamilySense when we think about memory acquisition, we will be able to optimize the chances for positive outcomes for our children. For instance, if we do what we can to provide happy memories from the very beginning, while the basic personality is being shaped, we are likely to improve their life chances. Because the direct exposure infants have to the broader community, media, schools, and friends is limited, the influence their families have on them at this stage of their development is greater than that of the other memory sources. Families tend to play less exclusively important roles for kids as they get older, and as schools, peers, and the media take on relatively greater importance. For example, we know that during adolescence friends and peers play a particularly important part in what gets deposited in our kids' "memory banks."

As we think about the kinds of memories we would like our kids to deposit in their "memory banks," FamilySense recommends that we:

• remember the two broad types of memory—specific and general
• be mindful of the primary areas that are the richest memory sources
• take into account the basic stages of child development in relationship to the primary sources for memory.

Applying FamilySense as our children fill their "memory banks," is a sound investment that is likely to payoff in healthy dividends.